Pages

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Don't Tell Me What My Daughter Can't Do, Tell Me What She Can

A guest post by Mordechai Osdoby

There's currently a
conversation going on about Jewish women wearing teffilin (leather boxes
with prayers in them), something that is traditionally a male-only
practice in Orthodox Judaism (Modern, Yeshivish, Ultra, whatever). Some
are cheering, some are disdaining, and some are calling for "official
statements" (from who? We don't have a pope!) against it. In my case,
it's reminding me of an earlier incident in my own life.

We
were having Shabbat dinner at the house of the Rabbi of a local
synagogue. This synagogue at the time was not strictly Orthodox; they
had no mechitza (barrier separating men and women) in the main
sanctuary. The Rabbi, however, was, and he was a long time associate of
my parents. In fact, they were the real guest; we were just ride-alongs.
I will never forget that night; after the blessing of the wine, we went
to wash before hamotzie (the blessing on the bread). When we came back,
it was not the Rabbi who uncovered and blessed the challah, but his
wife. Daphna stared at her in abject wonder. I could hear the thought in
her head "Girls can DO that?"

The Rebitzen, seeing my
smile, must have thought I was amused or worse, being dismissive. "Let
me explain," she said. I insisted there was no need, but she continued.
"Every Shabbat, my daughters would see me in the kitchen, slaving and
preparing, and yes, sometimes complaining. I didn't want that to be
their only association with a woman's role in Shabbat. So I made it a
point to make hamotzie every week, to show them that our part is not
just setting the table."

I loved it and thought it was
brilliant. Daphna too. For the next several weeks, she proudly made her
own hamotzie (as she was under Bat Mitzvah, we could not "count' in her
blessing). I was talking with my own Rav and mentioned it, including the
story the Rebitzen told. Now my Rav is very YU (in fact, he teaches
there). He was one of the later students of Rav Joseph Dov Solovechik
z'l (known in some circles simply as "the Rav). He has a big black hat
and people seem to have this mental image of him as this stern, tough
guy. His reaction to this flip of traditional gender roles (no pun
intended)?

"That's great! More people should do that."*

That's
why I felt comfortable in that synagogue. Because there was no
knee-jerk reaction of "this is different from what I am used to, so it
must be assur (forbidden). Actual merits were weighed. At the end of the
day, there really is no reason why a woman cannot make hamotzie (or
indeed, kiddush) for a man beyond "this is what we're used to". I am not
enough of an expert to weigh in on the teffilin laws themselves, but it
does seem to be an example of the same thing; something that's not
traditionally done, so it must be bad.

It goes both ways,
incidentally. My mother used to give a class at NCSY (National
Conference of Synagogue Youth) events, entitled "On Being A Jewish
Woman". Once - well, likely more than, but I only witnessed it once - a
young lady was very upset. How dare my mother, a stay-at-home mom,
lecture her on the role of women in late 20th century Judaism! The girl
argued that we needed to redefine our roles. My mother, who aside from
having the (demanding) job of raising us also ran a catering business
out of the house and served on several boards of the Orthodox Union,
smiled and said "Exactly. There's no one role for Jewish women. The goal
here is to discuss all we can do, not all we can't."

Sometimes,
these discussions mean considering things outside our comfort zone, or
things that may remind us of other "split off" movements of Judaism that
we may have issues with, or even a discussion that results in the
answer that it's not compatible with our own personal understanding of
our faith. But the key is to *discuss it*. They day we knee-jerk shoot
down anything as forbidden without any research is the day that every
one of us has failed not just our daughters, but our sons, our parents,
and ourselves.

*Note that this was a casual conversation and not a Halakhic ruling. Sad that I have to note this, ain't it?

If it relates to Jews, Judaism, holidays, Midrash,Torah, halacha or anything similar, I probably have a post on it. And if I have a post on it, I probably have a good comment thread with great reader-provided information, too.

Try a search and see for yourself. If you can't find what you're looking for ask me.

Quotes

רֹאשׁ דְּבָרְךָ אֱמֶת קוֹרֵא מֵרֹאשׁ דּוֹר וָדוֹר עַם דּוֹרֶשְׁךָ דְּרֹשׁ
Your chief word is "truth"; You've called it out since the beginning. In each generation people interpret You [for themselves] and find [their own] meaning.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd. -Flannery O'Connor

“When in the afterglow of religious insight I can see a way that is good for all humans as it is for me—I will know it is His way.” - R. Abraham Joshua Heschel

I don't accept at all the quite popular argument that the press is responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. The monarchy's responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. To blame the press is the old thing of blaming the messenger for the message. -Anthony Holden

Said behind my back

"...he's trying to show that there are other facets to Orthodox Judaism. That we don't all think one way and vote one way. And he's occasionally entertaining when he's not being mean-spirited" [PsychoToddler]"

"He's witty. He's funny. He appreciates the ridiculous in life, and has no qualms about telling you when he thinks that you're being a moron" [Cara]

" I'm pretty sure [DovBear] is a really great guy who just wants to be able to ask questions and talk about things without the fear of someone claiming he's off the derech or on his way there." [Chaviva]